Battlefield: Bad Company 2

It's been a long wait. Fans of Bad Company 1 and everyone who had heard of this 'Modern Warfare beater' were all in anticipation on the days leading up to March 2010, when the new multiplayer big kid on the block was to show up and, apparently, rock the online gaming world. I think it's safe to say that DICE's latest creation might as well make any other multiplayer game obsolete. 

Multiplayer is the clear focus of any Battlefield game, not least Bad Company 2, sporting the phrase 'Defining Online Warfare' on the cover, but I shall begin with the single player campaign. This features the return of the squad from Bad Company 1 (how they are back in the army after their gold-stealing escapade is unexplained, but it's no obstruction) who again go AWOL after they become separated from the US Army and instead receive a mission from the American Secret Service to venture into Russian-owned territory and find out whatever they can about an old, mysterious weapon the Russians are recovering which will apparently have the power to end the war entirely. This of course does not go wholly to plan and the squad will find themselves in tricky and sometimes ridiculous scenarios, but it must be noted that this is not a comedy-orientated game like the previous Bad Company. Haggard will still made the odd stupid remark, Sweetwater is still an embarrassing geek, and Redford an exhausted, strict veteran, but the obvious gags (such as driving golf carts or a gold-plated helicopter) are clearly avoided and replaced with a gripping, intense, and explosive - to put it VERY lightly - campaign. Twists and character development aren't particularly prominent but it definitely works very well in being a military shooter by using a balanced mix of realism and the necessary mad moments, in brilliantly realised environments, this time around usually based in Bolivian jungles and snowy mountain tops. Weapons now have a variety tripled in size, due to customisations such as scopes different ammo, and instead of having 'kits' in single player you may now carry two weapons of your choice, which tends to be a lot more convenient. This may be similar to a lot of FPSs of today, but with every weapon being quite so different and there being very few all-round guns it's both beneficial and enjoyable to be carrying two instead of just, say, an assault rifle and an attached grenade launcher.

When Bad Company showed up for the first time, apart from being 'the funny one' it was known to the Battlefield where stuff blows up. 'Tactical destruction', it was called. Fortunately, that worked well with walls nicely blowing up to remove cover, trees being crushed by tanks and bridges collapsing after taking enough stick from rockets and shells. It seems that this was just the tip of the iceberg with the Frostbite engine as this has been managed to be improved also, now more destructible wall and roof sections, entire buildings collapsing (and crushing everyone inside) and 'microdestruction', meaning small shards of fence or concrete can be broken off by firing any small arms weapons at them, instead of a wall being either completely together or entirely gone. By the end of a skirmish or multiplayer match, it'll be nearly impossible for the scenery to be anything less than annihilated and it is badass. The engine will also shine through with improved graphics, character models, animations, and best of all, draw distance. There are plenty of moments in the campaign where, clearly on purpose, you are given a huge vista to take in, such as a huge stretch of lush jungle, or a towering white mountain, and it will not fade into the distance or have rough edges but instead stare right back at you, almost photo-realistically. 

With just about all the basic boxes ticked, it leaves the bulk of Bad Company 2's appeal: the multiplayer. I was addicted to Bad Company 1's online play, but now trying to even describe the quality of multiplayer in Bad Company 2 makes me lost for words. Liked Gold Rush in BC1? It returns, now with the name rush. Liked Conquest in the DLC? That's packaged too. Combined with this is Squad Rush and Squad Deathmatch, where the named game type is played but in a free for all between squads, offering tight, tense and tactical matches aimed, for the most part, at the more hardcore of the fanbase. Regardless of what you're playing, however, you're guaranteed for some absolutely mindblowing fun. Stacks of weapons, attachments and upgrades to unlock, improved ranking system and squad play, sorted issues related to hit detection and weapon damage, great variety in vehicles including some fantastic additions - in particular the awesome Black Hawk helicopter - to name just a few. To say it challenges Modern Warfare's running and gunning/camping/grenade spamming/idiot fest with no teamwork incentive is one of the great understatements in recent gaming journalism. Given you have a good squad of friends to play with, you will almost certainly become addicted to this within a week; you have been warned.

What else is there to say? Criticisms, on the rare occasions they show up, are small and insignificant, and usually in the form of some maps allowing for a little too much frustration with snipers sitting on the sidelines. However, with the help of the new deathcam, it doesn't remain a problem and barely distracts from the overall experience. In summary, this is going to be one of the best multiplayer games you'll ever play, at least of this generation. It seems DICE know how to spot errors and slip ups in their former games and simply improve every time around, eventually and inevitably building up to a stellar title such as this. 10/10.

Army of Two: The 40th Day

It's good that in this day and age we can get another properly co-operative shooter, at a time where split screen and co-operative modes are being pushed aside to be replaced by online play and competitive game modes. The sequel to Army of Two improves upon many of the mistakes of the first game, and will be an enjoyable and visceral two-player experience, though perhaps with too many errors to become a classic.

It's hard to properly describe the context of the game as, while it does not hugely diminish the gaming experience, the 40th Day has the most non-existent storyline in any game I've played since Mario Bros. The two mercenaries, Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, are working in Shanghai when, all of a sudden, it begins to blow up. This blowing-up will continue throughout the game, and as you progress through areas they will blow up around you, buildings will blow up and collapse, and you genuinely wonder how Rios and Salem survive the whole game without being... blown up. So the real objective is to work your way out of Shanghai to safety whilst  fighting off hordes of private military groups who apparently are responsible for the mass attacks on the city. It will bear a lot of visual resemblances to rail shooters like Time Crisis, in the way that you are two bustly American football players who soak up bullets better than a concrete wall and face up against some of the most ridiculous looking bosses in a shooter that takes itself quite seriously. However this tends to show that the emphasis is on fun and teamwork, rather than being an immersing, realistic experience. 

Speaking of shooting, there's something in the 40th Day which is done better than in any other game of today, and that is the weapon customisation, and this is the true highlight of the game. As you play you earn money, and this is spent on buying weapons and upgrading them to be some of the most awesome (or ridiculous) looking guns you'll ever see. Want a fully-automatic shotgun? Good. Add a huge metal plate to it to act as a shield. And gold-plate it for good measure. This sort of customisation can be done on almost every weapon and it's great to know that the gun you're firing is uniquely yours and built for your style of play. This has a big effect on the 'aggro' system which returns from the predecessor to bring in the most tactical element of play. One player runs around guns blazing, usually using brightly coloured guns with muzzle enhancers and huge attachments, to attract the attention of the enemies, who will begin to return fire as the aggro-meter indicates towards that player's name. At the same time, the other player, using camouflaged weapons with silencers will sneak around the back and snipe or flank. As such, it is better to assign one player as the 'aggro guy' and one as the 'sneaky guy' at the beginning of the campaign, and customise all future weapons accordingly. EA also made an effort to distinguish what type of players you and your friend are by including 'moral choice' sections, where you have an interactive cutscene of which you can choose the end. These don't really have a lasting effect on the game, and the rewards for each choice are usually either money or guns, accompanied by a comic-book short describing the effect of your choice, but it's a nice addition.

This 6-8 hour campaign is definitely a blast with a friend, and the co-op aspect as been done very well indeed. Unfortunately, this is a point where the game really only has one leg to stand on - without playing it on co-op just about all fun is gone. The AI isn't horrendous but without being able to talk tactics with a team-mate and generally share the experience it feels like another average shooter. Some of the environments are quite good but on the whole this won't give you as many thrills as many other third person shooters will. 

The multiplayer is another is another part of the game where it tends to fall flat on its face. The maps are fairly underwhelming ports of campaign missions, the game types could be used to be a lot more co-op friendly (as you play online with a partner) and it has to be said that the health system works fine in campaign, but not as well online and every enemy seems a little too tough, bolstered by unfortunately unbalanced weapons. The multiplayer is also the most affected by one of the critical flaws of the 40th Day, and that is the technical side. Most commonly you'll get lag and being split up with your partner in the lobby, but other glitches I encountered included bad textures, enemies disappearing and, worst of all, shamelessly not coughing up the achievement for completing the game on the hardest difficulty. The cover system could also have been hugely brushed up on, as although it does a good effort at replicating Gears of War's perfect system, without an actual 'cover button' it's far too unreliable and I've been shot and killed plenty of times due to Rios refusing to protect himself.

I think it's safe to say you should only really buy Army of Two: The 40th Day on two conditions: that you're not shelling out the full price as it simply isn't that replayable, and that you have someone to play with, either split-screen or online co-op. Great weapon customisation and teamwork elements complemented by Rios and Salem's badassery make it a good runthrough, but without a decent multiplayer function and single player mode it's not something to be picked up more than once or twice. 7/10.